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'Bloodbath': Social Security Administration Begins Mass Firings | Common Dreams
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this post was submitted on 03 Mar 2025
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politics
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No. That is the bullshit excuse that performative faux-leftsts use. The impact of non-voters and anti-electoralists is plain to see for anyone with the slightest comprehension of statistical math that is so basic that is barely qualified as anything above arithmetic.
Every election in my lifetime has resulted in worsening of the human condition because "protest (non-)voters" can't be bothered to consider the most elementary examples of cause and effect:
Don't voice your view in an established manner and your view will not be reflected.
There's no political representation of us on the left because too many can't be fucked to participate in primaries or the democratic process (as much as it can be called that) either because they buy into the idea that, despite all evidence contrary, not opposing oppressors will somehow make things better or, because, again despite all evidence contrary, offering up minorities, LGBTQ+, and other vulnerable groups as blood sacrifice by enabling the establishment of fascism will somehow magically result in a workers' revolution and utopia.
TL;DR - Non-voters/protest voters and acceleration can get fucked. The are no allies to LGBTQ+ nor the working class as they are unwilling to do the literal least one can do to try to impact positive change, apparently preferring fascists and corpo dems.
"Every election in my lifetime has resulted in worsening of the human condition because "protest (non-)voters" can't be bothered to consider the most elementary examples of cause and effect" You say this as if the Democratic party hasn't run with exact same strategy the entire time. A strategy that doesn't work. Followed by yelling at people for not loving them enough (which has also never worked) and doing nothing to address there own shortcomings. They (rightfully) pointed out the bigotry of American conservatives, and then run a campaign to court this vote and alienate they people they claim as there base. And pick Kamala Harris as the candidate, as conservatives would ever vote for a black woman. Blindly electing democrats for running as blue team is what got us here, it is not going to get us out of it.
They have run the same strategy every time because it is what the data informs them that they should. They want to get elected (and maintain a neoliberal status quo) so, they listen to those who vote for them.
When leftists refuste to vote or "protest vote", the data points do not suggest to those making decisions that they should change course. No. They, possibly intentionally, embrace survivorship bias. Those that didn't vote are considered unreliable voters and removed from who the party decides to represent in their policies.
Is it bullshit and fundamentally fallacious reasoning? Yes. However, the party leadership is more concerned with keeping their cushy jobs and insider trading than any socially progressive philosophy (remember that most current Dems have been in office since before their party supported same-sex marriage). The data to them says "you can't count on votes from the left but the right always votes", so, court them to keep getting elected. And Dem leadership is intrinsically linked to participation in primaries and outside of elections. Their jackassery is actively enabled by people sitting them out - once doesn't get a seat at the table if they don't show up.
To add to the above, leftists refusing to even try to transform the Democratic party puts all of us in a precarious position due to economic (neo)liberals history of consistently siding with fascists.
Look, I get that not voting isn't the answer and have voted democrat in every election of my life. "Those that didn't vote are considered unreliable voters and removed from who the party decides to represent in their policies." But this isn't true. The Democrats dont ignore leftists because they refuse to vote democrat. The Democratics ignore leftist because they feel entitled to the vote, that leftists have no where else to go and that they should instead pander to conservatives who would otherwise vote Republican. This is literally just disenfranchizing your own base.
And frankly I don't see anyway to fix that, cause you're right that the Dems will look at leftist whose support they lost and decide it means that they should instead find support from republicans. But passing the blame off of the party and unto the people they failed to represent just doesn't work, it isn't going to convince anyone to come back to them.
"To add to the above, leftists refusing to even try to transform the Democratic party puts all of us in a precarious position due to economic (neo)liberals history of consistently siding with fascists." i mean, leftist have tried (and continue to try) to transform the Democratic party, it just doesn't work. Coopting and destroying left wing movements is like the only thing the Democratic party is actually competent at. Like (literally) every single mass political movement in my living memory has been taken in and destroyed by the Democratic party, because they feel entitled to speak for us.
I don't know an easy solution for this, but voting blue isn't it. I'll still vote for them next election (if it happens) but we can't delude ourselves into thinking that they are going to help. If we want the USA to make it out of fascism, we need to be building political power outside of the Democratic party
There just isn't a large leftist movement in the US. They aren't going to win more than a few seats. And blaming them while running further to the right is exactly what's happened every election in my lifetime. People have to exert effort to vote in most places, they need to get time off, they need to stand in line for hours, they need to deal with partisan poll workers, and for what? To watch the Democrats do corporate welfare too?
And don't start with the whole they were warned bit either. Every single cycle the Democrats have said the Republicans would end democracy. So nobody was listening to that anymore. The word fascist has entirely lost it's meaning in the US.
There isn't a visible leftist movement in the US for two primary reasons: targeted suppression by elites and intelligence agencies, and anti-electoralism/apathy. I'm not convinced that anti-electoralism isn't, at least in part, indirect suppression. The number of eligible non-voters is vastly greater than the participating electorate.
This is the same thing that I have seen. However, looking at the data, they're not actually incorrect. Leftists, largely, have been refusing to participate in electoral politics, which removes their voice from the party's effective constituency.
Protest voting/non-voting literally has the effect of removing one's voice from those that the party represents, it doesn't force them to reshape their politics in any way but that which gives them them reliable voters to campaign to. In a two party FPTP system, not voting for the viable candidate closest to one's politics doesn't send them the message to change, it sends them the message that you are not a reliable voter whose they need to represent or listen to. Anyone saying otherwise is delusional, lying, or potentially a state actor.
It's literally basic statistics.
Do I think that they should knock off their running to center and pushing to the right? Absolutely. It would benefit the populace greatly and we could try fixing some of this shit. But, being a leftist, I am the party's minority constituency. Most people who vote reliability in the primaries and generals are centrists at best and that is the biggest problem.
That's not universally the case. Because of leftists sitting out this election in California, the centrists and far-right were able to:
California is one of the easiest states to vote in. Gerrymandering and suppression are minimal outside deep red counties. And these were initiatives, not candidates - the data clearly shows that it was a problem of voluntary non-participation. My fellow leftist need to extract their heads from their lower GI tract and take responsibility for their choices.
The problem is progressives have been dutifully voting. And they get shit on every cycle. There may not be a leftist movement but there's definitely a center left movement and the democrats have been running away from them even while they keep voting and being vocal. They do not care. You want to talk about statistics? Lets talk about the studies that have shown all parties in the US are far more likely to suggest to suggest pro-corporate legislation than legislation that helps the people? It's literally over 90% of the time that the corporate interests get chosen. The people who say voting doesn't matter have been right for 20 years. It's only now that we have this MAGA movement there's actually been a difference to the average American.
And no, California voted it's ass off because of the senate race. The same people who vote blue there though would happily vote homeless people into concentration and death camps, literal quotes from around town are like, "I just want them to go away, I don't care what the government does with them". And every one of those ballot questions was framed in light of the homeless issue in ads. Homeless people steal, we need to bring back tougher sentences, Homeless people are lazy so once they're in prison we need to teach them to work, rent controls mean the area goes to shit and homeless people move in, medical nonprofits aren't giving the money to homeless people so we need to force them to use the money. All of it was bullshit, but the very same people who voted for Schiff ate that shit up.
And this is only possible because of a lack of political engagement. If progressives, leftists, and center-left consistently showed up in the primaries, we'd be able to shift the party. Instead, they don't and thus communicate to the party that they accept the chosen course.
Sadly, not entirely correct. About 1.7M fewer Californians voted than in 2020. That would have been enough to change the results in all but the rent control and mandatory sentencing initiatives. And, I'd suspect that if any amount of the energy that went into trying to convince people not to vote or that the guy who promised more genocide would magically do less went into outreach and education on the initiatives, we would have overcome the corpo influence.
All of that was indeed bullshit and anyone that didn't vote Schiff in the general was either not voting for viable opposition to fascists or actively supported fascists. Dedicating a fraction of the energy spent hating on Dems and repeating foreign influence campaign propaganda would have likely been able to at least educate enough people to make a difference. Instead, the state that is seen as the must progressive state in the country passed measures supporting slumlords and preserving the institution of slavery.
I'm sorry but you think the center left doesn't vote? That's not true at all. And California didn't have a problem voting for Harris or Schiff. The fact that those ballot measures passed on the same ballots that overwhelmingly voted for Harris and Schiff is an indictment of the Democrats.
So throughout your life time, election after election, you saw people not being represented by their choices in the voting booth and you did nothing?
Sounds like you understood the voting system was mathematically flawed in your preferred political party's benefit and wanted to keep it that way.
There are several quotes and sayings about assumption that would for well here but I was unable to find sufficient attribution of happy with them.
Let's see. Some things that I have done:
Your turn.
What have you done in your lifetime? Any of it guided by real-world data on likelihood of effectiveness in improving the human condition and protecting the most vulnerable? Or is it mainly informed by dogmatic "knowledge" from theory and the writings of authoritarian dictators cosplaying as communists?
lgbtq+ is also the most persecuted group followed by AA. and some of these people dint even vote, it was bad enough some voted R, but the non-voters just make them look worst.
What is AA?
african american, i just abbreviated.
Ah, thank you.
I thought it was some abbreviation for agnostic atheists or something, since I know as group, they tend to be hated, or at least, distrusted, as well. I seem to remember some poll showing that, but given how many "nones" there are now (nearing 30%), this may have declined somewhat. I'm sure the xtian taliban is salivating at the prospect of persecuting non-xtians, including atheists, the very minute they are given a permission structure from the qons in power.
For example (this is over a decade ago, so things may have shifted somewhat):
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-secular-life/201406/why-americans-hate-atheists